


Crash

by FormaStand



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FormaStand/pseuds/FormaStand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a fic exploring the dynamics of a redrom relationship between Dave and Karkat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crash

**Author's Note:**

> I was playing around with writing this pair and got something I kind of liked. rated mature for some foul language and what is probably the vaguest sex I've ever written.

They have a pattern that they follow, because they know, but.

No one else does.

They have rules.

They don’t kiss or touch around the others. (Karkat presses them into a doorway and curls his claws against Dave’s jaw. They part and no one is the wiser. Dave slouches away down the hall, and Karkat runs his fingers through his hair. But there’s no saving it. He can feel the blunt nails curling against his scalp.)

No one notices when Dave’s hand brushes past Karkat’s, and the troll’s fingers twitch outwards for a brief moment before curling in on themselves. Most of the time, not even Dave notices. When he does, he smirks so that Karkat knows. (Karkat doesn’t kiss the look off of his face. Dave doesn’t glance over his shoulder.)

They speak only in guarded insults. Sometimes even when they’re alone. (the words, ‘you’re such a pathetic douchebag’ have gained a special meaning between them. Neither knows how that particularly came about.)

Each of them trust that the other knows what they mean when they say certain things. They have to, because neither of them will say out loud when they need something. Dave has learned that ‘you give me such a fucking headache’ really means that he should go to Karkat’s room after they’re done dancing around each other for the day. He obviously has something on his mind. Karkat knows that when Dave tosses his head to the right side or rolls his shoulders that he’s feeling the scars today.

They have to know, and it’s only right that they should. Because they’re the ones with the most comprehension of the entire group. Or maybe they have the least. It’s hard to tell when tongues are pressed sticky-wet and someone takes one step forward and then two back around the corner with a tiny gasp because, really, what a scene. But the two don’t notice. And they both leave a little redder than usual.

Maybe they’ve known for a long time. Ever since Karkat found his way to the secluded section of lab that Dave had marked off for himself, ready for a fight over whatever (he doesn’t even remember now. It feels like in the face of everything it must have been so insignificant) and opened the door to find a small figure in the corner, face blank, knees curled up to his chest. Karkat took one step, then crossed the lab and threw himself to the floor next to Dave. (Karkat asked what the fuck was wrong with him. Dave knew he wanted to know if everything was alright. It wasn’t.)

Dave responded by taking off his shades and rubbing a scar on his neck. He didn’t say anything, but Karkat’s fingers unconsciously reached up and brushed against his left ear where half of it was torn off. Dave’s eyes flickered towards Karkat, and he extended one leg. (Two days later when Karkat woke up in nightmares and panic, he found himself in Dave’s room again, and the boy was still up, still making shitty comics for whatever reason, and he took one look at Karkat and nodded towards the corner. They sat next to each other for three hours and said nothing. Karkat never asked, but he assumed that Dave still made the comics to give himself some strange form of comfort, some illusion of normalcy.)

In the end, their relationship is a bit ironic, a fact which Karkat still suspects as being the original reason for it. Everything that can be hidden from everyone else during the day by carefully placed anger or coolness; everything can be seen right through in the dark when it is just them, alone to cancel each other out. Because somehow, they have some of the same scars, and they know that if the other needs it, those will be handled like gossamer.

But of course, that makes their fights all the more volatile. Nothing is sacred. Anything that can be mocked is. Any wounds held near the surface are either quickly buried, or they’re ripped open. They don’t pull punches when they fight. Both of them have a way with words, and they use it to their fullest advantage. Karkat always tries to make Dave lose his cool first. He tries to pretend that it’s solely out of anger. Somewhere in his mind it is because he knows if he loses his temper, his claws will do far more damage than even the worst of Dave’s punches. (Only once Karkat drew blood. Dave parted his hair on the opposite side for weeks. Karkat’s fists grew a little tighter and his scowl a little deeper every time someone asked about it.)

But they come back together. Dave’s knuckles will still graze against the back of Karkat’s neck as he passes, and Karkat will still snarl, but he will also toss a look after Dave, watching the way the swagger in his walk is slightly more pronounced to account for twisting his ankle when Karkat hooked his leg out from underneath him the previous night. They enjoy a precarious balance.

If Dave wasn’t the only person capable of making Karkat crack a smile, they probably wouldn’t stick around each other. As it is, the times when Karkat smiles are rare, fleeting, and he has a habit of brushing his fingers over his left eyelid when he does. Like he’s trying to physically wipe the expression away. Dave feels slightly accomplished and more than a tad possessive about being possibly the only one who sees this, since god knows neither of them has smiled since the game began, and Karkat admits that he’s always been a shut-in. (Dave deadpans that ‘worrying about being killed every day for thirteen years can’t be good for the skin’. Karkat sends him a glare and Dave knows he’s said the wrong thing. He covers it up with a sly half smile and Karkat rolls his eyes, blowing out a half-snarling sigh. Crisis averted.)

Most of all, they have to know who’s in control. It changes from day to day, from mood to mood, from how much Karkat is pacing to how much Dave is tapping his foot by the end of the day. It changes and they each have to know not to fight too much for dominance when the other wants it. (It’s important they remember this, because when Dave forgets, Karkat starts biting. Dave still has the ring of white scars on his shoulder to prove it. He’s morbidly proud of them. They give a little light to the rest of the pink keloid marks that line his arms and back. Bro would always catch him with his back turned.)

Sometimes it’s for Karkat. Sometimes he bursts in and rages on and on and on and on until Dave is forced to shove him up against the nearest wall hard enough to knock his breath out of him, because that’s what Karkat wants. When it’s for Karkat it’s hot and angry and fast, and he shivers afterwards when Dave runs his fingers along the ridges of Karkat’s spine. They don’t sleep. They just lounge on the bare mattress that Dave has placed in a corner of the room, covered by only one blanket. He wrestles the shades out of Dave’s hands when he tries to put them back on, and their eyes meet, their matching red eyes, because Karkat entirely gave up on concealment of his blood color once his eyes began to turn. (Dave just said that it was for the best, because Karkat could never rock shades. Like Terezi. Karkat narrowed his eyes and shot off some insult and Dave chuckled, because he’d said the right thing.) Karkat stays occasionally, but most of the time he leaves after a few hours. Dave watches him get dressed and go, and they leave it at that.

But today.

Today it is for Dave.

And Karkat knows, because Dave comes to him, to his room, which is more like a respiteblock than the emptied lab that Dave resides in, and Dave walks into the center of the room like he belongs there, and then just stands. And when Karkat walks up to him cautiously, Dave shrugs his shoulder and rolls his head away. Karkat stays a careful distance away, because he can’t move too fast, or else Dave will leave. (Karkat learned well enough the first time Dave did this. Their fingertips brushed and Dave flinched and then turned and walked out without a word. He wasn’t in his usual space for two days.)  
So Karkat stands neither beside nor in front of Dave, who is not quite a meter away, hands in his pockets. Karkat’s pose mirrors this, and for one brief, quiet instant in time, observable for just a moment like a dust mote being seen through a passing beam of light, they look like exactly what they are. Two teenage boys fumbling at what they don’t quite understand. For this second, they aren’t what they’ve been turned into, just what they’ve always been. And it scares the shit out of them.

When Karkat looks away, Dave turns his head.

Dave begins to talk, even as he reaches out one hand to curl into the dark fabric of Karkat’s shirt, letting his shades slip down on his nose enough so that his eyes can be seen, and Karkat takes a step closer and takes his hands out of his pockets, still not making eye contact as he trails a claw tip along Dave’s wrist. He knows that Dave runs his mouth when he’s uncomfortable. Getting Dave to shut up is always the objective, and it’s imperative that Karkat is silent from the very beginning. They’d love to cover this up with banter and sarcasm. But this is not like when it is for both of them, and then Dave generally spends more time laughing at Karkat to rile him up than he does adding his own contributions to their conversation. Until Karkat has suddenly tackled him and is griping in between kisses about how he can’t fathom how Dave puts his pants on every day as he claws, frustrated and a little desperate, at the layer of skintight denim.

This is a different sort of game.

So when Karkat glances up and is allowed to see the quietly haunted look in Dave’s eyes, he has to stop himself from saying something to the effect of how pitiful Dave looks when he’s like this, because Dave won’t take it like Karkat means it. Instead Karkat reaches up slowly to pluck the sunglasses from Dave’s face and tuck them in the pocket of his sweatshirt, which hangs on his slim frame a few sizes too large. Karkat is three full inches shorter than Dave. But what he lacks in Dave’s long, lithe limbs, Karkat makes up for in bulk and presence. They don’t even think about it when Dave has to dip his neck so that their lips can touch for the first time, tentative, and Karkat’s fingers curl under Dave’s shirt against the jut of his hips. Karkat presses back into the kiss, careful of his teeth, because even though they are not sharp enough to cut skin at so gentle a touch, he likes to think he knows what he’s doing here, and teeth should not be involved. Karkat drags his fingers up one of Dave’s thighs, and Dave responds by boldly palming the front of Karkat’s jeans. He’s still whispering something smug against Karkat’s lips, although the troll never really sees fit to listen. Listening only makes it harder for him to not say anything in return. And he doesn’t want Dave to leave just yet.

So Karkat tugs insistently at Dave’s belt loops, trying to propel him towards the mattress in the corner which is drowned in a mess of blankets and pillows, and pulls a bit harder when Dave seems just as insistent to remain standing where he is.

It always makes Karkat’s breath catch, when they hit the bed with Dave kneeling over top of him, and the soft brown freckles spattered all over Dave’s pale skin are less than a breath away. It always makes his heart race when Dave breathes out a little sigh as Karkat grips his waist to keep him still for a moment. It always makes his mind scatter when there’s so much bare skin pressed sweaty, slippery together that Karkat shouldn’t be able to think about anything else, but he still catalogues the way Dave’s fringe falls into his eyes and how he smirks a little bit even as Karkat succeeds in shutting him up.

And it always makes Karkat’s whole mind reel when Dave’s mouth stretches into something that could be a grimace of pain, but then his jaw drops just a little. His eyes slide shut and he shudders and Karkat just wants to tie Dave up somewhere where no one else will ever find him, possess every atom of his being and keep that expression on his face every second of every day because it looks so goddamn good on him.

 

(Then everything just.  
Sort of.  
Shatters.)

 

They don’t sleep.

They never do, not right away. Dave closes his eyes, but he’s never asleep. Karkat always keeps his eyes open, and Dave has gotten tired of making snide comments about the staring or the fact that Karkat apparently never blinks. Karkat just looks at Dave’s flaxen eyelashes, and the way they settle over his cheekbones, fluttering occasionally as Dave’s eyes move behind the lids. Karkat wiggles down a bit and nips at the soft, pale skin beneath Dave’s chin.

(and Dave smiles, just a little. He’s learned that this is as close to an affectionate gesture as Karkat usually gets.)

Dave’s fingers dig in a little where they rest on Karkat’s lower back, tracing the ridges between spinal plates. Karkat growls in the back of his throat.

Dave will be gone when Karkat wakes up. But he will be in his room, drifting around crafting beats or reading or just chatting with whoever needs his attention at the moment.

He will be as he always is.

But Karkat will keep playing his games. And they will keep orbiting around and colliding with each other.  
For the brief moment where they lay next to each other, for the tiny seconds scattered about haphazardly in their lives where they think about their relationship and not about how to keep Terezi from licking a freshly painted wall or about fictional comic shenanigans that no one will ever see; in this space in time…

They’re both okay with this.


End file.
